What does it mean to be political loyalist? , the case of Mr. Solomon

By Equar D. Negash

June 09 2008

In general a loyalist is one who maintains a persistent support for a political party, a state or the like. Political parties spend most of their time to recruit members so that to mobilize devoted, loyal followers, united by common aspirations and a well-developed ideology. Commitment to accomplish your party’s cause is not a bad quality by itself. However, blindly support everything what the party and party boss said is not by any measurement a health situation for the future of the country. Unfortunately, the hard core supporters of EPRDF, like Mr. Solomon, do not open their mind to different opinions like their bosses. I really appreciate Mr. Solomon’s determination and gut to defend what he believes is a right position. Even though, with a broken language and idea he tried to pass a little message to readers. Mr. Solomon is usually known not to confront ideas but side issues. He even tried to give comments on the well written articles of Mr. Gezaee Hailemichael on different times.

In my recent article I tried to talk the controversial Ethio-Sudan border issue and the Prime Minster’s speech to the parliament. Solomon did not want or unable to talk about this very urgent issue for a couple of reasons. First, he may not be authorized by his boss to talk about the issue. Second, the article was based on facts; hence there is no way to argue otherwise. For what ever reason Mr. Solomon is again failed to put his cause in a right way. According to him, I am a Shaibia’s cadre because I have different opinion on issues like this. I wrote a lot of articles on Eritrean issue and I do not think it is difficult to understand my position for people who read those articles.

Mr. Solomon let me advice you something, everything have a limit and it will gona end sooner or latter. I am sorry; it is a common sense to say this. As a people we have a lot of common things to do for our common interest. Hence, there must be consensuses among us to accomplish this noble task. We do not have to defend individuals or party as the expense of our unity. Government activity is a complex business which needs a wise action in every move. Therefore, one way to avoid negative setbacks
is to be open and transparent, especially if there is a polarized political environment like Ethiopia. This is what happened in the border issue of Ethio-Sudan. The government wanted to do things underground, without the knowledge of the people. Latter, provoked by some Medias, they told us the fact even with their own justification. I personally was not surprised when this border issue recently emerged as a political issue, at least in the Diaspora because things were not done right.

Mr. Solomon, I thought you read my articles with some concentration. If you have a problem with what I said, let us discuss. Otherwise, it is not helpful, even for your own party to label some body as a cadre for his different opinion. Anyway, I encourage you to keep your participation in whatever way you like.